Just to be even handed, I featured first Bernie and then Michael as my Tuesday Poets over the past two weeks. All three finalists, including former Te Mata Estate Poet Laureate, Brian Turner, were also featured on the Tuesday Poem hub on 30 July, NZ National Poetry Day.

To check out the General Non-Fiction finalists, click here. The Illustrated Non-Fiction finalists are here.

And there’s a People’s Choice category as well, with Alison Wong’s As The Moon Turns Silver the popular front runner for this award. (Although she’s also many pundits’ pick for the overall Fiction award as well.)

But we’ll all just have to wait and see what tonight brings, won’t we?

I think the powers-that-be decided that it was a bit anticlimactic to announce the Poetry winner separately and so far ahead of the others—and I must admit I am inclined to agree that poetry should have equal status ‘on the night.’ Must go now and see what’s happening—I believe Noel Murphy from the Bookcouncil is ‘tweeting’ the results.

"THE HEIR OF NIGHT by Helen Lowe is a richly told tale of strange magic, dark treachery and conflicting loyalties, set in a well realized world."--Robin Hobb

Thornspell

Jacket art by Antonio Javier Caparo

Thornspell is my first novel and is published by Knopf (Random House Children's Books, USA). It won the Sir Julius Vogel Award 2009 for Best Novel: Young Adult and was a Storylines Childrens' Literature Trust Notable Book 2009.